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Today's. Grade Life belongs to a

1:21

writer who perhaps understood children as

1:23

well as any grown up ever

1:25

has. She. Was a mold

1:28

breaker who conjured world's of fantasy,

1:30

magic and adventure and what's more,

1:33

her own extraordinary life was too

1:35

often stranger than fiction. She was

1:37

a passionate bohemian woman who had

1:40

utterly an appropriate affairs in a

1:42

very open marriage. She brought up

1:44

five children, only three of them

1:47

her own. She socialized with George

1:49

Bernard Shaw and Know Card, and

1:51

somehow she found time to publish

1:54

forty books for children to. She.

1:56

Was. He. Nesbitt are you

1:59

sitting com. And let's

2:01

begin. The. Old was glowing

2:03

and inside it's something was

2:05

moving. Next. Moment there

2:07

was a soft cracking sound the

2:09

I'd burst into and out of

2:11

it came a flame kind of

2:13

bird. As it rested among

2:15

the flames, the children watched it begin to

2:17

grow bigger. And bigger. Which.

2:20

Of you it said put the egg

2:22

into the fire. He. Did. Said.

2:25

Three voices and three fingers pointed

2:27

at Robert. The. Bird.

2:30

Bowed, A clip

2:33

from the Phoenix on the

2:35

Carpet read by Patricia Hudgens

2:37

Written by my greatest this

2:39

week he ages Nesbitt. She

2:41

was the author behind such

2:43

classics as The Bread Away

2:45

Children and Five Children And

2:47

it She Died exactly one

2:49

hundred years ago. And. She's

2:51

been chosen by another enormously successful

2:53

children's writer, Catherine Rundle. Perhaps cancer

2:56

needs no introduction listeners with children

2:58

or grandchildren will recognize are among

3:00

her own titles: the Rooftop as

3:02

the Wolf, Wilde Out the Explorer

3:05

She's one more awards than I

3:07

can list. Last year it was

3:09

Waterstones Book of the Year for

3:12

Impossible Creatures and and this is

3:14

closest to my own heart. Most

3:16

of her childhood, a child of

3:18

an adventure, was spent in Zimbabwe.

3:21

As was mine. Catherine, Why

3:23

he knows but. I

3:26

think the thing that seat

3:28

did was right. Real children.

3:30

I think previously many of

3:32

the characters in children's fiction

3:34

said been models the ways

3:36

that adults wanted children to

3:38

the Hayes and has just

3:40

a ruptured from the page.

3:42

Her characters are funny and

3:44

ironical and jealous and city

3:47

and clever and foolish and

3:49

loving. It's see saluted the

3:51

reality of children's lives and

3:53

in so doing teens to.

3:55

Than six and for s or

3:57

I think of writers before her

3:59

children's. It is an whom I

4:01

was encouraged to read The Wind

4:04

in the Willows, get get his

4:06

degree in a Swan Eyes and

4:08

Amazon's Alice in Wonderland. I

4:11

appreciate those books more now than

4:13

I actually did when. I. Was

4:15

a child. They. Weren't written in

4:17

a child hearted sort of list. Think

4:20

Alice's such as sneezing example in

4:22

that place that I liked Addis

4:24

as a child. I love her

4:26

as an adult. Nice. The book

4:28

has a kind as to realism

4:30

that I think is difficult. To grasp

4:32

pool with when you're nine years old? Yes, I

4:34

just thought it was Cillizza back to smoke. It

4:37

has. It has in some ways it. As

4:39

vision of childhood that is absolutely. Adult

4:41

soon. There is. In As That

4:43

looks at children ideal ice and she

4:46

spends them. She has at the close

4:48

in her nonfiction where she says there

4:50

is no need to talk down to

4:52

children's the Understand saw more. Than you

4:54

think. You yourself

4:57

have embraced mythical beasts and

4:59

and your book impossible creatures.

5:01

It's filled with dragons and

5:03

griffins. And try Mirror State

5:05

her use of magic and

5:08

miss inspire you I think

5:10

was absolutely formative. In the way

5:12

I went about rising and possible teaches.

5:14

that is the thing that see set

5:16

up with that you could has. Magic

5:19

you could have. Something absolutely astonishing.

5:22

Children could rise to meet it's.

5:24

But you would still be used so

5:26

you could yeah faced with. A

5:28

Phoenix or a Wisconsin sammy ads and still

5:31

be and bickering with your brother about

5:33

when you should use sandwiches. The the idea

5:35

that she brought descend testicle and the

5:37

real and held i'm Sorry tied in the

5:39

same and and you could imagine. It

5:41

happening to you tomorrow? exactly?

5:44

In making the children real and

5:46

the creatures real and their interactions

5:48

real, you feel that this. Could

5:50

be just around the corner for you. I

5:52

still hope the sammy adds. To

5:55

that syria little from her book, Five

5:57

Children and it this is them. When

6:00

the children discover the Sand

6:02

Ferry or Sammy Ad in

6:04

the Ninety Ninety One Bbc

6:06

Tv dramatization. I'm

6:19

not afraid to let me. did. You.

6:34

To see it come out.

6:36

Ah. Yes,

6:44

Of money. I.

6:50

Feel like ceasing this recording and listening

6:53

to the rest of the whole thing?

6:55

I'm drawn into it. I

6:58

want to explore how he knows

7:00

bits Writing was influenced by her

7:02

own childhood. Elizabeth Calvin, who joins

7:05

us from Australia, has written a

7:07

biography of Nesbitt. Elizabeth

7:09

What first drew you to Edith?

7:11

See. Such a landmark crisis when

7:13

I was pitching by of the

7:15

season children so office my publisher

7:17

I thought that oh my say

7:19

that Beck's as a child and

7:21

the Railway Tilton was one of

7:23

my same as I still have

7:25

their Marks and Spencer red leather

7:27

bound coffee with journals writing on

7:30

a since he was as very

7:32

interesting right said that will say

7:34

when I started see reset her

7:36

assassinating person as wow. She's

7:38

a bundle of contradictions since it

7:40

is absolutely. See this as seven

7:42

este that then as he didn't believe

7:44

that's the way men and she had

7:46

lots of extramarital affairs but damage writes

7:48

about as a pass at Martha. He

7:50

knows that mother in the railway children.

7:52

he always has time for details in

7:55

and buys been city and reads and

7:57

stories by his has her own life

7:59

is really. Why is she

8:01

in as bitten? A? not edith nice

8:03

bit. As good question I am

8:05

I said still now today we

8:08

have take a rallying another office

8:10

he didn't necessarily reveal their a

8:12

christian name and Sydney this case

8:14

it was because she believes in

8:16

the Victorian times it habits and

8:18

have more appeal to read his

8:20

his hair. But. Gender was ambiguous

8:23

and to secede have more chance of

8:25

getting published as well. Tell. Us

8:27

about her unusual childhood which I

8:29

imagine most of other a huge

8:32

effect, perhaps inspirational I don't know

8:34

but to a big effect on

8:36

her own right? it ceases. Always

8:38

claims have had shouted result and rate

8:40

but it it wasn't his soul and

8:42

she's born in accounting. Sin Sandwich of

8:45

course is a very busy passes central

8:47

London today but in the midst eighteen

8:49

hundreds he was born and eighteen sixty

8:51

eight and it was a farming land

8:54

area and has father actually and then

8:56

sits and the first artificial says allies

8:58

as they lived on a three acre

9:00

farm and she was the youngest is

9:03

six children and I would see brothers

9:05

and three sisters and maybe they with

9:07

a five and she was the it

9:09

so not so of it and they

9:12

they lists air they're quite happily and

9:14

have her father was quite the hands

9:16

on that saw him father apparently he

9:18

said go on all fours and that

9:21

the children and rides and I don't

9:23

see style on his back and things

9:25

that sam a force me he he

9:27

died when she wasn't yet for and

9:30

that had a profound effect on on

9:32

her life and or said a family

9:34

slice. Her mother was able to keep

9:36

the agricultural college. And farm running for

9:39

a few years. but then when one

9:41

of edith sister Mary courts and had

9:43

C B it was thought by her

9:45

mother she would have the best chance

9:48

of recovery she would see and live

9:50

in a warmer climate. Said they lived

9:52

for many years across Europe. catherine

9:55

to what extent do use

9:57

you see nesbitt early childhood

10:00

experiences as influencing

10:02

or even determining the writing that

10:04

came later. I think

10:06

her strange and peripatetic

10:09

childhood must have affected

10:11

the ways that she thinks about home,

10:13

the way that she thinks about parenthood,

10:15

the fact that she lost her father

10:17

so young. And so many

10:20

of the books, especially most famously

10:22

The Railway Children, are about fathers

10:24

coming home. I'm sure

10:27

that there must have been a thread

10:29

between her childhood heart and her

10:31

pen. Elizabeth, how did the young

10:34

Nesbitt, the young Edith, discover

10:37

her love of writing and of course also

10:40

her talent for writing? Well, she came

10:42

back to the UK, back

10:44

to England. Her mother wanted to

10:46

introduce her to society. So

10:49

they rented a beautiful house in

10:51

Kent and it was a quintessential

10:53

English house called Halsted Hall. And

10:56

Edith would lie in the hammock reading

10:58

borrowed books from the local vicar of

11:00

Shakespeare. William Make

11:03

Peace Zachary was another favourite. And

11:06

she developed her love of reading there,

11:08

but also her love of writing. And

11:10

she published her first poem when

11:13

she was about 15. And

11:15

that magic moment when she saw her name

11:17

in print had an influence

11:19

on her forever from that moment.

11:22

She started quite young. She

11:24

seems to have started quite a lot

11:26

when quite young, including relationships, Catherine. Yes.

11:29

So of course, Nesbitt was

11:31

pregnant at the age of 21 with

11:35

Hubert Bland's child and

11:37

discovered only after she was pregnant

11:39

that he had another fiancé who

11:41

was also pregnant with his child.

11:44

So her entry into romance was

11:46

a rocky one. Tell us

11:48

more, Elizabeth, about this character Hubert Bland.

11:52

Well, enter stage right, Maccavillian

11:54

villain, complete with mustache, dark

11:57

hair, monocle. He

11:59

really was a character. character. I've got a photo

12:01

of him here, he looks appalling. What

12:04

did you see in him? Apparently

12:07

he was magnetic, you know, he's very

12:09

tall. He used to box and

12:13

had an irresistible personality apparently. Edith

12:15

met him by chance when she

12:18

went to meet her fiancé who

12:20

worked in a bank, who was

12:22

called Stuart Smith. But her

12:25

poor fiancé in fact introduced her to

12:27

his colleague Hubert Bland and

12:29

for both Edith and Hubert it was live at

12:31

first sight. So she broke it off with poor

12:33

old Stuart and she went almost immediately

12:36

after to marry him. Poor

12:38

Stuart, that's a terrible thing to do. So

12:40

then they struck up a relationship very

12:43

quickly. He proposed

12:45

and Catherine's absolutely right, he

12:47

had a double life which

12:49

neither woman, either Edith nor

12:52

Maggie, Doran, who was Hubert's

12:56

mother's paid companion knew

12:59

anything about each other and Hubert would live

13:01

with Edith for a few days during the

13:03

week and then go back to his mother's

13:05

in Woolwich till Edith found out what was

13:08

going on and actually went

13:10

to visit Maggie and shook her hand

13:12

and said hello and offered to be

13:14

friends. In fact they were friends

13:17

for years until Maggie died.

13:20

That's an extraordinary thing to do,

13:22

isn't it Catherine? To discover that

13:24

the man you think is your

13:27

husband is at the same

13:29

time having a relationship with somebody else and to go

13:31

and make friends with her? Absolutely

13:33

and even more so at the time. I

13:37

think it is so bound up

13:39

with her bohemianism, with her

13:41

socialism, with her sense that the way

13:43

the world is ordered is

13:45

not the best way. So

13:48

she was constantly going against

13:50

convention throughout her life, this

13:52

very striking imaginative woman

13:55

and of course sometimes that came

13:57

out in remarkable jags of generosity.

14:00

and greatness and sometimes in spite

14:04

and cruelty.

14:06

She was a very complicated woman.

14:09

Hubert Bland has been described as

14:11

a poser by nature and something

14:13

more than a philanderer by habit,

14:16

with a, I'm quoting, voracious

14:19

sexual appetite. Catherine, does

14:21

his life not warrant a book in

14:23

itself? What do you make

14:25

of their domestic arrangement and his monocle?

14:28

I think we must not overlook the erotic

14:30

charge of the monocle. I think that's probably

14:33

at the heart of it. I think

14:35

certainly his life was remarkable and

14:38

not just for the way that he was

14:40

able to draw from Edith some

14:42

of her great work. I find

14:45

him hard to love, but it is true

14:47

that he facilitated her imagination. But

14:50

then also his very real

14:52

dedication which matched hers to

14:54

socialist politics. Tell us

14:56

something about Alice Hodson. Well,

14:58

she's also a key character in the whole

15:01

drama of Edith's life and Edith did love

15:03

drama. She loved things to happen and she

15:05

loved to be the center of them. Unfortunately,

15:08

Hubert became very ill with

15:10

smallpox and nearly died and

15:12

also at the same time lost all of his money

15:15

from being a brush salesman. Apparently,

15:18

his dastardly business partner ran off

15:20

to Spain. So

15:22

it was left to Edith to work,

15:25

which was very unusual for nice

15:27

middle class women. She'd just had

15:29

a baby and then shortly after

15:31

had another one. So

15:33

she had two children, very young

15:35

and then was forced

15:38

to be the breadwinner really. So

15:40

she would write stories in her

15:42

spare time which she didn't have much of. So

15:45

she'd put the children to bed. She

15:47

couldn't afford any help and then would

15:49

light a candle and have a teaspoon

15:51

of gin. And off she went writing

15:53

her hack stories for newspapers. And then

15:55

in the morning she'd get the train

15:57

or the tram down to Fleet Street.

16:00

and try and sell her stories and

16:02

eventually went up to

16:04

stairs of one magazine called

16:07

Sylvia's Home Journal and

16:10

it was in 1882 and she

16:12

came across a woman called Alice

16:14

Hopson who spotted Edith's talent and

16:16

from then on Edith got regular

16:18

work. And Alice

16:20

and Edith became lifelong friends and

16:23

introduced Alice to her husband

16:26

and eventually Hubert

16:28

slept with Alice and they had

16:30

a daughter together in secret.

16:33

Another one. And another one,

16:36

Rotherman's and when Edith found out she

16:38

was furious, they had enormous

16:41

arguments and screaming matches but

16:44

eventually Hubert persuaded Edith

16:47

that they should adopt the daughter and

16:50

Alice should live with them as

16:52

their housekeeper and so she

16:54

did and they all

16:57

lived along merrily for another few years until

16:59

it happened again and Alice had

17:02

a boy this time but they

17:05

did all live together in a

17:07

menage a trois. It's kind of getting to

17:09

the point where even at this stage we

17:11

need a pencil and paper to draw who

17:13

slept with whom, who had children with whom.

17:15

Did you Catherine have the

17:18

same sort of hammering on publishers doors

17:21

and then finally meeting someone

17:24

who saw the value in your work? I

17:27

did have a great stroke of luck

17:29

in finding my agent and that was

17:31

one of those moments where what looks

17:34

possible suddenly becomes greater. The

17:37

other thing was that years ago I read

17:39

this description of Venus but putting

17:42

gin in a water in a bid to stay

17:44

up later so I tried that and several of

17:46

my books have been written under the

17:48

influence of a very, very small homeopathic

17:50

amount of gin which does help.

17:53

Elizabeth it may sound strange but

17:55

were Hubert and Edith happy together

17:57

do you think? Oh yes they

17:59

were. at the beginning he was everything

18:01

she and

18:19

Edith was one of the founding members and

18:22

it included the greatest minds of the

18:24

time such as George Bernard Shaw, H.T.

18:26

Wells, Karl Marx's daughter to

18:29

Eleanor. And that's the same

18:31

Fabian society as we still have

18:33

today? Absolutely, it's Britain's longest-running

18:35

political think tank and it inspired

18:37

the formation of the Labour Party.

18:40

But Catherine, G.B. Shaw,

18:42

I mean they shared a love of socialism

18:44

but I just can't imagine her with G.B.

18:47

Shaw can you? It's one

18:49

of those rather surprising meldings

18:52

that you see where I suppose

18:54

they had a lot to admire in each other.

18:57

They both loved a vivid sentence,

18:59

they both loved, he

19:01

famously admired her poetry and you

19:04

can see why she would fall in

19:06

love with him. But of course it

19:09

looks if you look at the history like he

19:11

was rather leading her on. Yes, she

19:13

thought that didn't she in

19:16

the end Elizabeth that he shouldn't have

19:18

started it. Yes,

19:20

you said you had no right to write the preface

19:22

if you were not going to write the book. She

19:25

was so furious, you know, she's defined

19:27

him at home and introduced herself to

19:30

his mother and the poor man I

19:32

think was terrified. And

19:34

then she made friends with Noel Coward, don't

19:36

know socialist at all, who

19:38

says said that she

19:40

was an inspiration. And

19:42

what steps did you take

19:45

to educate yourself as a

19:47

writer? Read. I belong to

19:49

the Battersea Park Public Library,

19:51

not laboratory. Library, writing

19:53

a slip. What books? I

19:55

mean what particular authors? I've never known which

19:58

particular authors. Well, the first. one

20:00

with a lady called Ian Nesbitt who wrote

20:02

books for children, and Saki.

20:05

Saki was another of my inspirations

20:07

and up to a

20:10

point Dickens. How Elizabeth did

20:12

Edith really become established as

20:14

the writer that she became? I mean

20:17

she did try for 20 years

20:19

writing hack stories really for children

20:22

but it was only just

20:24

before the turn of the century in

20:26

1899 when she wrote The Treasure Seekers

20:29

and that was the first time

20:31

really that anybody had written anything

20:33

real for children. Before then there'd

20:35

be very good stories by authors

20:37

such as Mrs. Molesworth but they

20:40

were stories really that were educational

20:42

or instructional for children and The

20:44

Treasure Seekers was the first time

20:46

that real children had been written about, you

20:48

know, argumentative children who got

20:50

messy, who climbed trees and

20:53

as Catherine said earlier the

20:56

mixture of the magic and

20:58

the everyday which is still

21:01

such an important thing in children's psyche

21:03

isn't it? You know all children believe that

21:05

just around the corner you can go

21:07

through a door in the park and

21:09

then suddenly you'll be into another world and

21:12

she influenced so many authors because

21:14

of that. C.S. Lewis for example,

21:17

Tolkien, J.K. Rowling, you

21:19

know I don't think the children's novel

21:21

was ever the same again after that.

21:24

And the second thing that really

21:26

made her successful was something

21:28

very sad. Just before his

21:30

16th birthday her son

21:32

Fabian, they named him Fabian

21:34

after the society, he died

21:36

unfortunately after a routine operation

21:39

for adenoids and unfortunately

21:41

it seems as if he choked on

21:44

his own vomit because the poor

21:46

boy had eaten breakfast and he just

21:48

never forgave herself. But then the following

21:50

year she wrote a sequel

21:52

to The Treasure Seekers and then within

21:54

the seven years following his death her

21:56

literary output was extraordinary and she wrote

21:58

all of her. most famous

22:01

books, including The Railway Children and Five

22:03

Children in It. Can

22:05

you link Catherine,

22:08

this awful thing that happened to her and

22:10

to her grief, with throwing

22:13

herself into her work in the way that she

22:15

did and the success that followed? I

22:19

think you can. You can see her powering

22:22

through these texts, writing very

22:24

fast. One of

22:26

the things that a lot of them have is a

22:28

longing, whether it's a

22:30

longing for a magical world or in The

22:33

Railway Children, a longing for

22:35

a space outside of the

22:37

grief that they are currently inhabiting. And

22:40

I think one of the things that makes

22:42

her work so powerful is

22:45

it has such wit and generosity

22:47

and lightness, but it is written

22:49

by someone who has understood darkness

22:51

and is writing these fabulous jokes

22:53

in the light of that. I

22:56

wonder too, perhaps on a more prosaic

22:58

level, I've sometimes found that when something

23:00

awful has happened, which is completely obsessing

23:03

me and making me miserable, writing

23:06

becomes an escape. You go into your

23:09

little office and you sit down and

23:11

it all goes away and you become absorbed

23:13

in something else. And then when you come

23:16

back to your own life, it doesn't seem

23:18

so bad after all. Exactly that.

23:20

I think you can think of some

23:22

of the books that she wrote after

23:24

Fabian's death as moments

23:26

of respite, moments

23:28

of oxygen in a month,

23:32

a life that must have just been suddenly

23:34

plunged into such a magazine. Her

23:37

books, as Elizabeth says, flew

23:39

off the shelves. Does

23:41

a writer, not just a children's writer, but

23:43

any writer know as they hand

23:46

over the manuscript to the publisher that this

23:48

is going to be a big seller? Do

23:50

you know? I don't

23:53

know. I would never be able

23:55

to tell you if a book is going to

23:57

do well because usually you've lived up so... close

24:00

to it that you can no longer see it

24:02

very clearly. I don't know

24:04

if perhaps because she wrote so fast

24:06

she might perhaps have had a clearer

24:09

sense. I edit my

24:11

books over and over and over. Yes, I

24:13

do. 18 or 17 times. I think she

24:15

was going fast. She was going like a train.

24:18

Trains take us to the book she wrote

24:20

in 1906, The Railway Children.

24:22

Huge success. It's been a film.

24:25

It's been a television series.

24:27

Here's a clip. What's it

24:30

matter who waves water? We can only stop the train.

24:42

He's on the line, Grubbin. He's

24:45

on the bus. Get back. Not

24:50

yet. Don't! Wow.

25:04

That's the 1970 film.

25:06

Catherine today, even my researcher, who's a

25:09

child of the 1980s and

25:12

in a pop band now, told me, whenever

25:14

The Railway Children is mentioned, I can

25:17

hear the train whistle and the smell,

25:19

the cold from the engine and the

25:21

old farmhouse too. It's

25:24

obvious why it became such a hit, isn't

25:26

it? It is. I think it would be my

25:28

vote for one of the finest children's books ever written, in

25:31

part because it has so much

25:34

fresh air in it. And

25:36

in part because the plot

25:38

of the story means that Bobby, our

25:40

heroine, is when she

25:43

discovers her father has been wrongly accused of

25:46

a terrible deed of treason. She

25:49

suddenly has to bear that burden. And

25:52

so she is utterly exiled from

25:54

childhood and she has to

25:56

rise to it. And

25:59

Inesbit creates this glorious moment

26:01

at the ending where

26:03

her father comes back and she

26:05

cries, Oh, daddy, my daddy. And

26:08

in that moment, Inesbitt is allowing

26:10

us to believe that sometimes

26:14

the world will be so hard

26:16

and so bleak. And

26:18

just occasionally, the thing you

26:21

long for most will

26:23

step out in front of you and call you by

26:25

name. And that seems to

26:27

me so perfectly done.

26:32

Is she still relevant today?

26:34

Do you think, Elizabeth? Absolutely.

26:37

And it's important to remember that the

26:39

Railway Children has never been out of

26:41

print. And as you said, it was

26:43

published in 1906. So that's quite

26:45

a rare feat for any book, let

26:47

alone a book that was supposedly written

26:49

for children. In a lot of

26:52

her work, Catherine, the children she depicts

26:55

appear to be bored before something

26:57

happens. And it

26:59

strikes me that boredom is a very

27:01

important element in children's lives.

27:04

I have no children until I

27:06

started reading around this

27:08

great life. I had completely

27:10

forgotten, but Inesbitt is reminding

27:12

me how feeling bored was

27:14

such a present part

27:17

of childhood. Exactly. And

27:19

the children in her books are, as

27:22

you say, they're complaining about boredom, they're

27:24

longing for something to happen. They are

27:26

keyed up to a state of readiness,

27:28

which is in some ways what

27:30

boredom is. And then into

27:33

those moments, she drops these

27:35

fantastic, brilliant inventions,

27:38

the magic carpet, which can take

27:40

you anywhere in the world, the

27:42

Phoenix, the amulet, the Samoyed, even

27:44

just the Railway. And

27:46

I think that the hardest writing I do by far

27:49

is writing for children, because

27:52

you need to salute them,

27:54

respect them, meet them

27:56

where they are. You need to

27:58

try to galvanize them. need to offer

28:00

them a sense of the world

28:02

as colossal, you need to give

28:04

them a little bit of electricity to spend their

28:06

day with. And I think that that's

28:09

what she was able to do. Edith

28:12

Nesbitt liked to have the last

28:14

word, so it's perhaps appropriate to

28:16

close with a quote from the

28:18

last book she wrote, The

28:20

Lark. The

28:22

ever-sunny Jane in this book likes to

28:25

see the best of a bad situation,

28:27

always looks on the bright side of

28:29

life. Her words may be sum up

28:32

Edith's approach to life, her work and

28:34

what lies beyond death. Everything

28:37

that's happened to us, yes,

28:39

everything, is to be regarded

28:41

as a lark. See? This

28:44

is my last word. This

28:46

is going to be a

28:48

lark. Well, my thanks

28:51

to Catherine Rundell for choosing Edith

28:53

Nesbitt as her great life and

28:55

for the lark that we've had

28:58

describing this extraordinary life and also

29:00

to her biographer Elizabeth Galpin. Goodbye.